


Hard-Knock Life

by Kittycattycat



Category: Hiveswap, Homestuck
Genre: A lot of feelings of hopelessness, Ableism, Alcoholism, Anxiety, Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, Casteism | Hemophobia (Homestuck), Death, Depression, Drinking, Dysphoria, F/M, Flushed Romance | Matesprits, Gen, Gender Dysphoria, Implied Stalking, M/M, Multi, Nightmares, Obsession, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Quadrant Confusion, Quadrant Vacillation, Self-Doubt, Self-Hatred, anger issues, mild gore mentions, yeah fuck it I'm taggin it like that. It's faygo tho but it's also trolls
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-28
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-08-08 15:52:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 8,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16432403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kittycattycat/pseuds/Kittycattycat
Summary: It's hard being a teenage troll growing up in a murderous and violently oppressive society, it's hard and no one understands. (500 word minifics for each of the troll call trolls. I'm going in no particular order but I guess I'll take requests?)





	1. [MALLEK] Going Off-Planet Sounds Like a Shit Idea

Mallek Adalov doesn’t find comfort in the fact that he’ll be off-planet soon, despite the fact that said planet is probably about as shit as it gets, at least on this side of the galaxy anyways. Like, yeah, for him it's not actually that bad because he's a cerulean blood, but that doesn't make it great or anything. It's still kinda bad all the way up and down the complex and cruel ladder that is the Alternian hemospectrum. He doesn't want to stay here forever in misery. But in some unseen twist of fate, he's become slowly more sure that he doesn't want to leave, either. This place is his home. He doesn't wanna leave it to go up into space and order around lowbloods. He's perfectly willing to stay down on the planet’s surface, spending way too much time in front of a computer screen rerouting indigo douchebags’ delivery drones just to fuck with ‘em for shits and giggles like some sort of edgy wriggler. But it's just not feasible, and the closer Mallek comes to the date of his Ordeals the more his mind forces him to accept that fact.

He sighs, adjusting his back as it leans up against the hard damp wall of his underground hangout and looking out across the not-so-vast expanse of the river system in front of him. The old fading graffiti on one small corner of the wall to his left proudly proclaiming the writer to be a “LOWBLOOD RESISTANCE MEMBER” stares back at him, and Mallek feels his eyebrows draw together as he glances off to the side. Fuck, man. Why’s it gotta be like this? 

Maybe he could be a resistance member. He's thought about it before— not seriously, but slightly. What's he even got to lose? He either goes off-planet and leaves all his lowblood friends bleeding in the dust and dies out in space somewhere doing something he hates, or he “fights back” and ends up getting himself killed before he officially hits adulthood, not even accomplishing anything for himself or for anyone else. 

He's got half a sweep. What can he do in half a sweep? What should he do with his last remaining time on this planet, with his lusus, with his friends, and without the looming threat of more highbloods ordering him around on some spaceship halfway across the galaxy or whatever? Nothing good is coming to him. Nothing ever seems to anymore. God, he's so exhausted. 

He knows this feeling of dread and sick building in his acid tract and climbing up into his bellowsac enclosure well. He did some underground research once on a burner phone with a really good VPN downloaded and in use (even then he threw the thing far, far away afterwards.) It's some mental affliction, apparently. Depression. Whatever it is, he's cullbait if anyone thinks he's got it. Mental afflictions don't fly on Alternia, everybody knows that. 

“Shit,” he murmurs, hardly even noticing as it echoes through the chamber.


	2. [CIRAVA] Being Internet Famous is Tiring as Fuck, Dude

Cirava’s halfway through recording some new video when the smile drops off their face and they turn off the camera. They're fuckin’ tired, man. Bein’ internet famous is hard work, and if even though they're totally cut out for it it's still a lot to do. Their followers are already hella nuts over them and their latest trac. Gotta keep ‘em pleased. Sad though it may be, their small and insignificant interactions with their fans are kinda what keeps ‘em sane a good portion of the time. Not many irl friends they can chill with nowadays. Most of ‘em have already blocked them on all their social medias and stopped responding to their texts or DMs, the fuckers. Turnin’ their backs as soon as shit gets crazy, as soon as their lives might be on the line. Cowards. That's what internet fame is all about! Puttin’ yourself out there! Droppin’ sick tracks even as the public tears you to shreds! Those assholes they used to be friends with didn't even know what was up.

Anyways, damn. They're kinda tired as shit ngl. When was the last time they had sleep? Mighta been back when they hit their sweet vape rig so fuckin’ hard they almost passed out lmao. That was at least a few days ago, though. Yeesh. Maybe they should get that good, good sleep for once. Like, intentionally. Accidental half-naps are lit as fuck obv and far superior to genuine sleep when you're a busy internet celeb with a lot of fans on the edge of their seats like Cirava, but like, they gotta get that good quality rest so they can have the energy to keep both their iconic aesthetically half-dazed look and their huge online streaming empire alive and kicking as they should be. 

They wander up the escalation zigzags that lead up to their bedroom with heavy, lethargic steps. Damn, did they always have such a ways to go up? Or were they really just way more exhausted than they thought they were a few minutes ago? They could swear they were perfectly awake when they ate lunch, but considering that the sun is seemingly going down right now that means they deadass probably ate that lunch yesterday. Oh well. They're kinda used to starving themself and being exhausted for long stretches of time.

Cirava gets up there to their room and wow, yeah, that sopor slime is suuuuper stale. Like, the stalest. Wow. But also fuck, because they're pretty damn sure they don't got any extra laying around to exchange it with. And even if they did, that would mean having to go through the rigorous and quite frankly inconvenient task of actually changing the slime batch and throwing it away before putting in the fresh slime, and they kinda want that sleep now instead of later ya dig?

But Cirava figures stale slime is better than no slime. They slip on in without taking off their clothes and prepare to catch some z’s.


	3. [GALEKH] Quadrants are More Than a Little Bit Bullshit

Galekh isn't vacillating red for his kismesis— he’s not! And obviously anyone who thinks he is needs to get their gander bulbs checked. Because truly, his feelings for Tagora are only the purest black, he is filled to the brim with hate and rivalry and oh who is he trying to kid. If he's honest, and he really is quite honest most times to the point where it's almost a fault, his feelings for Tagora aren't quite as black as they used to be. And he has no fucking idea what to do about it.

When did it start getting progressively harder to reciprocate Tagora’s hate-flirting? When did he start becoming more and more compelled to tap the little red heart outline underneath Tagora’s newest selfies and posts instead of the spade button? And thought it wasn't at all unheard of for a kismesis pair to hold hands with each other, why was the idea suddenly so much more appealing to him that barring his teeth at the tealblood? Galekh had no idea, but the whole thing was really starting to mess with his head.

Vacillating was something couples did in cheesy romance movies to add drama and flair. Vacillating, if taken far enough to the point that the two concupiscient quadrants were ‘filled’ with the same one person and therefore interfering with the genetic material collection process, was something that could get you culled. For the good empress’ sake, he wasn't a wriggler! He should be able to tell his own feelings, separate square from square in his table of quadrants and the colors between them all. But, he supposed, of course it couldn't be so simple, not for him. No, never so simple.

His mind was still reeling wildly from all his thoughts when his palmhusk buzzed from atop his chairside table. It was probably just Tagora, no big fuss really.

Oh. Tagora.

What, he wondered, kneading his bottom lip between his row of sharp top teeth, what would Tagora do if he found out Galekh might be waxing red for him? The shorter troll had never shown even the slightest of signs that he might have feelings other than those that were the darkest of pitch. Would he lurch back in disgust at the thought of gently embracing his hatemate like one would a matesprit, sneering and upturning his nose? Or maybe he would laugh, loud and hearty, doubling over and clutching his sides and grinning at him maliciously because oh wow, what top-tier blackmailing material! Galekh was absolutely pathetic, feeling pity for his kismesis!

From behind his specially-made lusus gate, Goatdad bleated with guardianlike concern and sympathy. He could tell something was wrong even as Galekh was turned facing away from him. What a good lusus he had. Galekh made a soft rumbling noise in the back of his throat in response, letting Goatdad know his worry was appreciated but unnecessary. He would work things out on his own, some way or another. He always did.


	4. [FOLYKL] Fuckin' Kuprum and His Fuckin' Trizza Boner

Folykl swears to GOD, if Kuprum doesn't shut the everloving FUCK up about Trizza, he is gonna be a sad little mustard-colored smear of blood and viscera behind some dumpster by tomorrow.

At least he would be, if she had the energy to do shit like murder her moirail or survive without using him as her own personal battery pack. But sometimes it just be like that, you know? So she deals with the cards she's been so unceremoniously dealt by keeping her claws relatively blood-free and NOT murdering Kuprum for the weird tyrannical fish fetish bullshit he spouts off all the time. What a fucking tool.

She almost kinda worries about the guy sometimes? Because like, damn, how fucked up in the head do you have to be to literally wanna be used as a living battery not only by your best friend and moirail, but also apparently by the empress and the fleet of nasty-ass highblood motherfuckers piloting all the rest of her random ships? But whatever, worrying like that takes time and effort that Folykl honest to god just doesn't fucking have right now, and probably won't ever have.

She'd never say it, but sometimes (a lot of times) she secretly hopes that her draining of his psionics might keep him safe from scouters and recruiters. Sure, yeah, because he's the only thing on this entire hellplanet keeping her from dying of voidrot, but also because on some level (a LOT of levels) she knows being a battery won't be fun, and no matter how much of a fucking freak Kuprum might be, he'd eventually get miserable and Folykl doesn't know if she could live with herself if she allowed him to go off like that. Maybe eventually that dumbass will realize shit’s fucked and that he doesn't ACTUALLY wanna power some random highblood’s ship for all eternity, but even if he does, what's he gonna do about it? He either becomes a battery (bad fucking option, sounds pretty shit if she's real), gets culled for insubordination if he gets recruited and tries to fight the man (also pretty bad, but at least he'll get a somewhat quick and possibly painless death), or she keeps draining away and hiding his strong psychic energy until it's his time to go off planet and go through the Ordeals and he ends up as some menial labor worker because there's no other good use for him that suits the empire.

Kuprum lets out a loud, snorting, gross-ass laugh that she's kinda come to love. “Shut up dumbass,” Folykl hisses from atop her perch. There's no real malice behind the words. 

He's still snorting like an idiot. “Empire-Memeteam put up a new post on their account, check it: it's the troll with the hand out and it says ‘joining the lowblood rebellion,’ and then the same troll pointing and kinda smiling and it says ‘worshipping Trizza like the goddess she is.’”

Folykl blows a raspberry at this, and Kuprum laughs again.


	5. [TEGIRI] Feeling Wrong in Your Own Skin? It's More Likely Than You Think

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Free dysphoria check.

Tegiri Kalbur worries about a lot of things.

These thoughts that fill his head are ridiculous, obviously, and definitely nothing worth losing valuable sleep over despite the fact that he is indeed frequently startled into waking early due to nightmares of getting culled by the drones that patrol his neighborhood in the early mornings. It's nothing to worry about, and so he won't worry.

Except that he does worry. He worries and he worries and he worries, and sometimes he’ll worry so long that by the time he realizes that he's been sitting stock straight in his recuperacoon for hours on end the sun is beginning to go down past the horizon and he has to get up and prepare for work. He frequently hopes that his morning showers will wash the tired and almost, somehow, hollowed look off his face. It never does.

Tegiri worries and stresses and generally gets all kinds of messed up about a large variety of things, all differing in nature but all still enough to run through his thinkpan again and again so quickly he thinks he's going to get whiplash if he tries to keep up with his racing thoughts. It's more than a little inconvenient.

Sometimes he worries about the way he will occasionally see the girls in his Eastern-Alternian anime series and think about how comfortable and cute their schoolgirl outfits are. How the skirts would look while they flowed behind him gracefully, allowing him to run and kick and deliver justice the way the empire intended, how their tall stockings would gently squeeze the meat of his thighs and suit him so perfectly, how the ribbons they tie quickly and easily into their hair could pull back his locks away from their place hanging over his eyes and really, wouldn't that just be so much more convenient? 

Sometimes he worries about the makeup he keeps stored in a secret cabinet drawer in his ablution trap. What if someone finds it? He bought it for a friend— or at least, that's what he assured the bored-looking rustblood troll at the checkout counter who definitely wasn't listening— but how long would that excuse really hold up? He didn't want to wear it because it's not normal to want something like that, and that's not good because on Alternia abnormal means you aren't fit for anything. Because ‘not normal’ means you're ripe for the culling if the drones so choose.

Other times he worries about what he's done with Polypa. About the fact that maybe, just that once… disobeying the empire’s laws was the RIGHT thing to do…? She just looked so pathetic lying there, with a bloodied lusus and a burned home; with two broken legs and one broken soul. He wanted to fix it. He tried so hard. He thinks he did pretty well for himself then, even if he knew someday he would have to end her life.

Until then, Tegiri Kalbur will worry about a lot of other things.


	6. [BRONYA] Sometimes the Life You Get Isn't Worth Living

There were some night when Bronya Ursama nearly decided that she simply shouldn't be alive. 

That was absolutely and completely ludicrous, of course, and she knew that to be true. Her Jadeblood girls needed her for guidance and support. The lusii needed her to watch over them and make sure they were properly taken care of. The Mother Grub needed her to provide her with food and slurry to keep the species alive and thriving. The little wrigglers needed her for, well, EVERYTHING. For food and shelter and medical care and everything else under the moon. All these helpless young grubs needed her. Even including (ESPECIALLY including) the abnormal wrigglers, the ones set to be culled, the ones who would have ALREADY been culled if it weren't for her and the completely-legitimate-and-not-at-all-illegal-or-treasonous nursery she built for them all herself.

Yes, she was integral to the lives of everyone in the brooding caverns! Of course she was! It was so obvious, everyone could see it, so her thinkpan could just hush because of course she would be totally excused if her secret batch of semi-defective and highly cullable wrigglers were discovered! She would be pardoned, or given a light slap on the wrist from her superiors, and those little grubs would obviously be fine and nothing bad would happen to them! Maybe she would even be allowed to keep them, raise them as her ow—

No.

Bronya’s breath hitched in her throat. She wasn't positive but she was pretty sure her hands were shaking with the sheer intensity of the jolts of fear that ran through her body. These thoughts, these- these disgustingly treasonous THOUGHTS were why she needed to die. Why she didn't deserve her place in society with everyone else. Yes, of course, how could she ever have forgotten?!

There was no need for trolls to raise other trolls! That was sick! That was wrong! Almost downright perverse! Absolutely inexcusable and unnecessary and disgusting and vile and- and- and-

And Bronya wanted it more than anything she had ever fucking wanted before in her seven and a half sweeps of living.

Good fucking Christ, she thinks she's gonna vomit, and the mere idea of THINKING at all makes her even more violently ill. She does not think. Fuck, she doesn't think or do ANYTHING without the government and the empress and her own society telling her to think or do something first. Except that is precisely what she's been doing, what she IS doing still. God, she should just turn herself in to the nearest drone because why the fuck should some horrid, rebellious, treasonous SCUM be allowed around wrigglers, around anyone?! 

She should be locked in a cell for the rest of her days. She can't believe that mere days ago she considered the idea that the government was the one in the wrong here. No, of fucking course not, it was obvious now. It was her. She was not fit for the society she was born into.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you like,,,,tell that my anxiety and depression and dysphoria and general self-hatred have kicked in for these past two chapters. Because they have. Whoops. Guess I'll die or smth who knows. I think the writing is maybe not complete shit but idk man.


	7. [ZEBRUH] Whoever Said 'Nice Guys Finish Last' Must Have Really Gone Through Some Shit

Zebruh rested his chin lightly on the flat edge of his recuperacoon as he stared out at his block’s pile. Velvety plush dolls with unique features and polished metal horseshoes and a lot of fabric and laundry all bundled up together nicely into a large heap that sat near the easternmost wall. It caught many of the beams of moonlight as they trickled in through the windows he'd left intentionally semi-uncovered (he found the aesthetic of the shining to be quite beautiful.) The pile would have been great for a feelings jam between moirails, really. Everything was completely perfect— except, of course, for the unfortunate fact that his pale quadrant was as barren as a sandy wasteland in the mid-morning.

It wasn't for lack of trying, he was certain! Getting someone officially boxed in to your pale quadrant obviously wasn't quite as important as finding a proper kismesis or matesprit— someone to help you fill buckets and avoid certain culling via not offering up your government-mandated slurry mixture— but moirails were pretty great things to have when you were a troll prone to fits of anger and upset. He'd been pale-flirting with just about every other lowblood troll he came across for what felt like sweeps in the hopes of filling that particular quadrant, but so far no luck had struck him. He'd offered words and touches of comfort and support to those who seemed to need it— hell, he'd even flashed the half-diamond scissor motion with his fingers like some sort of wriggler to try and make his already clear pale advances even more obvious! 

Zebruh sunk back down into the cool sopor so that it was up to the tips of his ears. He did everything a good potential moirail should do, so why was his diamond still so damn empty?! What sorts of rude, ungrateful gutterbloods had been kept running across that would turn down his advances when being with him in any quadrant at all would be incredibly socially advantageous to them?! There was literally no downside he could see!

He rose up slightly inside his recuperacoon again, huffing hard through his teeth and flushing a deep indigo. Fuck. Fuck! He needed someone to give him a shooshpap or something, and he needed it NOW! He was tired of his lusus angrily snorting at him and bumping his snout into the small of his back to get him to calm down! He deserved a proper moirail, dammit! Some lowblood he could vent to about all his worries and concerns and frustrations because let's be real, being an ally on a planet like his was a hard and thankless job! 

A feeling akin to fire courses through his veins. He's clenching his teeth hard and balling his firsts. Zebruh is MAD.

But there's no moirail in sight.

Eyes darting over to his block’s door to make sure it was closed, Zebruh reaches up a still-shaking hand and paps his own face lightly. It does nothing. As expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What an absolute asshole motherfucker. Disgusting. I love him.


	8. [AMISIA] Being Able To Paint Good is Some Impossible Fuckin' Bullshit

“No, no, no!” she snarled, all flaring nostrils and bared sharp teeth and fury smoldering in large wide eyes behind a pair of smudged lenses.

It had been weeks, WEEKS, and Amisia was no closer to anything good! Everything was smears! Wipes! Splatters! Blobs of multicolored blood-based paint being swiped all across the blank canvases but none of it meant anything! It was all useless! Terrible! Not what she wanted at all! And as Amisia felt her claws tear through the pathetically thin fabric of the canvas she wanted to destroy everything her tiny hands had ever laid a finger on because it was all fucking horrible!

She tore and tore and tore at the semi-used canvas until she was indigo in the face and her eyes looked like they might just pop out of her skull. Her fists clenched hard and she slammed it down onto one of her wooden tables, breaking it in half and spilling muddy paint water all onto her hive’s floor and sending half-dried paint brushes flying across the room. A jar of gold-tinted paint rolled over to her foot and she kicked it hard into a wall, cracking both on impact and covering her shoe in the nasty mustard color. She didn't fucking care. None of it mattered anyways. She would never fucking need any of this stupid dumb fucking art equipment because she wasn't even a real artist! She was useless and so was all this stuff!

Face still contorted from the venomous outburst and with anger bubbling up ominously inside her like a metal container of scalding leaf fluid left on the stovetop for too long, she whipped back her front door. It left an indent in the wall and the knob was broken yet again. Fuck! She opened her mouth wide and let out a horrifically shrill screech loud like a storm out at sea, a torrent of rage and fury all exiting her body in one singular bout of noise that filled the area and certainly would've caught the attention of her neighbors had she not lived secluded as she did. In wake of the lack of people, the trees rustles ominously in reply to her piercing scream as if the very wind itself were startled.

The noise was fading from her throat, leaving nothing but a sharp dryness in her mouth and a distinct soreness in her reddened throat. She clacked her teeth shut and swallowed, wincing at the discomfort the small simple action brought to her. Tears were streaming down her cheeks now, half brought on by her emotional upsetness and half from the sheer exhaustion that fell over her. The trees rustled again, and a few booms of great thundering echoed through the forest. 

Chahut would be here soon, then she'd calm down for sure. God, Amisia was so tired of having her horns handed to her by her own ineptitude. The indigo slumped defeatedly down against her front door and let the wind blow over her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you tell the indigos are my faves yet


	9. [ZEBEDE] Fixations are Normal, You Know! Totally Normal! 1000% Normal!

It's only during his seventh replay of Cirava’s newest camera-recorded and face-revealing video that Zebede even CONSIDERS that he might have a problem. 

Really, though, he means, why would he have any reason to assume this wasn't healthy? Watching the same videos of the same people, same PERSON, of CIRAVA, over and over and over. Memorizing the exact sound of their voice, the pitch and the tone and the way they said certain words. Taking in every single detail of their clothing and body because they're just so darn attractive and he can't help himself. Smiling at every little tick in their voice and minute twitch of their face (it's from that incident they had, he knows. Where they gouged out their own eye to avoid getting pulled early by drones or culled by random highbloods. Zebede remembers exactly when it happened and when he first found out about it because he bawled into his couch cushion until he was about to be sick at even the mere THOUGHT of them hurting themself like that. There were still yellowish tear stains on that cushion. They're not gonna ever come out, and he thinks maybe that's fine.)

But yeah, why would that ever be a problem, really? He's been called creepy before. He's been called gross. He's been called obsessed, a stalker, and generally just unwell. But all those people were WRONG, he knew that to be the absolute truth, because this made him happy! It was what he had! There was nothing inherently wrong about getting excited for his favorite GrubTube content creator’s new uploads and new streams, nothing wrong with commenting and favoriting and sharing and replaying their videos time and time again because he liked them so much, with crying and screaming and writing in all capital letters in his journal about how their latest video didn't show their face and how nobody appreciated them and their work like they should, like he did. 

Every so often, when Cirava misses an upload and Zebede is just so scared that maybe the drones have finally gotten to them or maybe a highblood troll from before came back for revenge, he revisits his fanfic. He's got a lot of other pieces in the works, with a good amount of them also featuring Cirava, but this one is the only one that's completely finished. It doesn't hurt that it's also his favorite. It's explicit, with tags like ‘voyeurism’ and ‘masturbation,’ and though Zebede was incredibly embarrassed while writing the thing he can't claim to not enjoy it now that it's finished. Not even in like, a weird and/or sexual way— he just thinks it's a really good piece of writing! It was not only his first explicit fic posted, but also the first one to gain over five hundred hits, fifteen likes, and seven comments in just two days! 

There's nothing wrong with his writing, there's nothing wrong with his fixations, and there's definitely wrong with him! Nothing at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love this kid but I hated finishing this one tbh


	10. [TYZIAS] Maybe the Real Victims Were the Lowbloods That Were Mercilessly Killed Along the Way

Tyzias had never, never been so exhausted and angry. 

Blood and corpses and unholy amounts of disgustingly fresh viscera are not very unusual to any troll, and certainly not to her— she WAS a legislacerator-in-training, after all; she gets shown pictures of gory crimes scenes almost constantly. But in all the photos she'd been shown before, nothing had ever looked quite like this. 

The gore colors cover maybe half the hemospectrum, she thinks. Lots of rust, obviously. Then there's bronze, gold, olive, teal, and some cobalt splatters. But there might be some indigo mixed in there too, and she's pretty sure if she squints and tilts her head the right way and the sun shines in just the right spot then that puddle of colored blood right there at the base of the fallen wooden sign that had been broken in half during all the chaos might just be violet. 

Tyzias wasn't entirely sure who finally killed the damn thing, or if it was stupid enough to get itself killed by falling and impaling its own torso on some dumb dweeb’s katana collection. But it had caused quite the horribly massive amount of carnage before it decided to kick the bucket. Large wooden stands, clearly hand-made, were splintered to bits that scattered across the whole field. Long strings of broken festival lights laid in tangles throughout the grass and dirt, having been stomped on and cracked until it was near impossible to tell what they were originally. Paper lanterns laid flattened in muddy puddles, backpacks and bags were ripped to shreds and abandoned everywhere, paperback books with bright-eyed and plucky young trolls as the cover art were so wet and trampled and crumpled they were rendered unreadable.

And that wasn't even mentioning the body count.

The scent of cheap greasy food and body paint that had surely permeated the entire vicinity less than half a day prior was now entirely gone, replaced by the smell of blood and piss and hardly-decayed flesh that even still had already begun to be picked apart and ravaged by nearby animals. Corpses went on as far as the eye could see. Some were more obviously killed by the escaped cholerbear, with large deep claw marks and ripped flesh caused by its incredibly large maw and one body even with a tooth still left in its shoulder. These corpses accounted for the majority, she would say with the same amount of almost-certainty that she said everything else with. The other bodies, however, were what disgusted her most.

They did not bare scratches or bites of any kind. Rather, they were covered in bruises and filled with broken bones that would sometimes jut violently out of places bones should never jut out of. They had been shoved aside by highbloods into stands and oncoming waves of frantic con participants attempting to escape certain mauling. They had been trampled to death by the crowd.

Those that killed them would never face justice, Tyzias knew that fact well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ohh man I loved writing this one tho. God I lived for it. Plus I love Tyzias.


	11. [CHIXIE] The Music Industry is Crap, So Have a Couple Drinks and Slosh a Couple More

It was only two o’clock when Chixie tipped the first one back.

Twin streams of sickeningly sweet Faygo dripped carelessly down from her chin, a revolting reddish-brown color one can only get from the unholy combination of grape and redpop soda she'd mixed together inside of an already empty plastic soda bottle. Once, at a concert, some rando highblood clown who was very obviously drunk off his ass went on an indecipherable tangent about it being the drink of the gods, not to mention how it could get just about any troll of any blood caste tipsy as hell in just a few swigs. Chixie really wasn't entirely sure that anything the guy said had been true (it almost certainly wasn't), but since then making the mix had become common for her and the color was now very, very familiar. The taste didn't even make her gag anymore. Hooray!

A bent and more than likely broken coathanger wire poked sharply into her side, jutting out from some nook or cranny in the gigantic pile she'd found herself laying atop of in what she thought was supposed to have been her dressing room for the night’s concert. She ignored the wire. 

Some indigo had bumped into her in the hallway a while ago (she wasn't quite sure how long it’d been) and when she'd apologized, they had only grumbled something akin to “fuckin’ gutterbloods” as they started to march off in a huff. She'd grumbled something in return while she smoothed out the nonexistent wrinkles her sweater, but apparently she'd made the mistake of not waiting for the indigoblood to be completely out of earshot before she'd said it. A quick kick to her shin from a troll with infinitely more strength than herself was all it took for her to go down and crack the back of her head on the side of a table, knocking her out cold in a single instant. Even as she continued to take swig after swig from the Fargo bottle, her head was still pounding something hellish, and she was fairly certain that the harsh as hell kick had broken something or other in her right leg.

So yeah. The coathanger digging into her goddamn hip could just fucking chill out for a damn minute and wait for it's turn to be the biggest source of physical pain in Chixie’s life. 

The shitty TV in the dressing room suddenly blared with noise, echoing the cheers and hollers she could vaguely hear from the main concert area. Lazily, she cracked open an eye and drifted it over to the tiny screen. The indigo who'd broken her leg and destroyed her chances at performing stood center stage, surrounded by two ceruleans and an olive. She said nothing.

She just chugged, and chugged, and chugged, and…

She hit the bottom of the bottle.

Chixie didn't question herself at all, grabbing the next bottle and sobbing violently when she read the label. Cotton candy. She hated cotton candy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "But Luna, you basically just rewrote Chixie's Friendsim route!"
> 
> Ya lmao maybe so


	12. [DARAYA] (1/2) Some Alien Probably Has It Better Than You, and That Pisses You Off

Daraya would never had admitted it, but she stargazed.

It was honestly more like planet-and-galaxy-gazing, really, because she had no interest in whatever mundane garbage the stars alone had to offer her, but you know. She'd managed to skirt around her nightly Lynera-assigned duties at the brooding caverns that day and had wandered for a long, long while. She thought she might stop at a party some cerulean who's name she didn't know had thrown, but… her feet just kept going. Her mind was zoned out entirely, the part behind her eyes fuzzy and her head feeling heavy and dulled in a way she couldn't quite place her finger on. She picked at each of the individual imitation grubhorns on her bracelet as she meandered down street after street at a steady pace.

Eventually, she stopped out near a mostly-empty patch of grass. It was a downward slope, a hill. She walked just a small distance downward and plopped onto the grass. She quickly lied down on her back, shifting around as the blades of grass tickled her bare arms. Her eyes finally flickered upwards, and she watched as the stars and satellites glinted brightly in the darkness.

Stars and the night sky weren't anything unusual or special, really— most trolls saw them all the time as they went about their day-to-day shit. But Daraya was a jade, stuck in the caverns for almost her whole life unless she actively made a choice to sneak out. The stars were more interesting to her, caught her attention. So different from the rocky ceiling of the brooding caverns she typically inhabited.

“Hello there!” a bombastic voice from behind her announced gleefully, and Daraya immediately whipped around and sprang to her feet, ready to defend herself if the stranger turned out to be someone with ill intent. Fortunately enough, Daraya easily spotted the several bronze-colored articles of clothing the guy had adorned, as well as the equally bronze Taurza symbol boldly standing out against the grey of his jacket. Combined with his goofy-looking aviator hat and large pair of goggles that hid his eyes, she could tell he was definitely a fucking weirdo. 

And of course, out of all this entire goddamn field, the guy sat next to her.

She didn't know what was happening, the fuzz in the back of her head overtaking everything. Her blood boiled, her heart pounded loudly in her ears. 

“Shit’s horrible!” she said, after a long stretch of stressful silence. Actually, the guy might've been talking. She didn't care. She panted, her body feeling like she just ran a marathon. “Everything is awful and I’m sick of fucking living here because of this fucking society being so goddamn awful. Try and get me culled, I fucking dare you.”

Something in her told her to cry, but she didn't. Instead, she bit her lip and blinked furiously. She felt the stranger place his hand on her own. She grabbed it, squeezing tighter, tighter, tighter. She didn't let go.


	13. [VIKARE] (2/2) Space Will Be All Yours Someday, but You're Not Actually Sure That You Want It

He wondered what he was supposed to do in situations like these.

This strange jadeblood girl… he didn't even know her name. She didn't even seem to LIKE him. And here she was, clutching onto his hand for dear life like it was all that was keeping her tethered to her own mind.

"…Why'd you come around here anyways?" she mumbled,

Heck. What was he supposed to do? Say something cool? Try to comfort her? 

Eventually, he simply shrugged, heaving himself up and sitting with his knees pressing into his chest and his arms wrapped snugly around his legs. He almost winced at how emptily sad her expression became when he pulled his hand from hers. “Mostly to scavenge for parts, but it's also just a rather nice place to be! Very rural."

A silence fell over then. Vikare watched the sky. He didn't turn to her, but he assumed the girl was doing the same.

"Sometimes, I pretend the stars are the suns," she confessed suddenly, and Vikare felt his eyebrows raise. "I've kinda always wanted to feel the suns on my skin. I wonder if they would burn."

Vikare wasn't sure what to say to that.

"You should be happy," she spat suddenly, with a strong bitterness that caught him completely off-guard. He looked over at her— she was sneering, even as she remained on her back, only looking up into the inky black abyss that was the Alternian sky, "you're a bronze, you're gonna get to see all that shit up close someday. I'm never gonna get to, I'm a fucking jade."

Vikare felt a small, chirp-like noise escaped the his throat. Normally, one would expected sounds like that to be made in surprise or annoyance or happiness, but this one specifically sounded just… upset. Somewhat sympathetic, but also… pathetic. Sad. A dark flush came across his face.

He turned his head away and tried not to imagine what expression she was making then. Out of the blue, his companion slowly and gently began to lessen her intense grip on his hand, and he nearly jolted. He quickly squeezed her hand back, just slightly, and she stopped. Their hands stayed apart and they weren't sitting THAT close, but tips of his ears burned even brighter as he realized they probably still looked like a flushed couple out on a date or something. He mentally breathed a sigh of relief that they were in an area with little to no foot traffic.

"…I don't want to do it," he whispered, barely audible even in the complete silence, "I hate the stars. I hate space."

He could feel tears starting to build up in his eyes from underneath his goggles. God. No. Stop, stop stop. Don't cry. Please don't cry. This is humiliating enough.

Her hand cautiously pried his own away from his leg, and she intertwined their hands together loosely.

“…Daraya,” she said quietly, and he immediately understood what she was trying to do.

“Vikare,” he replied gently.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THREE things:
> 
> ONE, this is PALE bc Daraya is very much a lesbian no doubt
> 
> TWO, I really didn't mean for this to be so shippy but GOSH I like this pair now and I don't know why. It's pure crack and I'm so here for it.
> 
> And THREE, …friendly reminder that I still take requests on what trolls to do next. I'm thinkin' Elwurd but I also don't have many ideas for her now. I have received exactly zero (0) suggestions and so yeah I'm open as fuck to 'em.


	14. [LYNERA] Every Step You Take, I'll Be Stalking You

Sometimes, when Lynera looked at the list, it felt as if Bronya was slipping down from in-between her perfectly painted clawed fingertips. 

She stares down at the paper, and the names stare back up at her, unblinking, each written in her own distinguished and fluid handwriting. The thing, the whole list, had been rewritten more times than she thinks she could possibly recall. She rewrote the entire list each and every single time she added a new name (which was very, very often.) They had to be in order according to the hemospectrum, of course, with hotter-hued troll names at the bottom and colder-hued ones at the top. It was very appropriate, she thought, to categorize them this way. Not to mention because she always wrote every name with a color-coordinated gel pen.

(Once upon a time, she had been foolish enough to do it the other way around, with reds on top leading down into blues. Once she was old enough to realize her almost downright treasonous mistake, she was mortified. That list was burned to ash, and then not a scrap was left of her horribly embarrassing failure. Nothing.)

Then, after all THAT organization, the names were then put into simple alphabetical order. No complications to that! So the whole thing in it's entirety followed something like this: 

"Ertekk Appset (indigo)  
?????? Elwurd (cerulean)  
Nielli Queren (teal)  
Yuuhik Mosate (olive)  
That Oliveblood Girl (hmm)"

She decided when she wrote the girl down that she could get her name at a later date, it was unimportant then. Lynera does know who she is, but very vaguely. She's very much a mystery to her, an enigma wrapped in layers. She hates the girl because she seems to know something that Lynera doesn't. How untrustworthy.

The list goes on.

"Lincir Kapeno (gold)  
Cinoci Schenn (gold)  
Vikare Ratite (bronze)  
Cuzmeo Yenhav (rust)"

She knows the list backwards and forwards, name after name standing out in her mind as clear as day. She could recite it in her sleep. She'll never forget the names.

Even still, Lynera’s eyes flicked back up the list, and then narrowed into sharp, dagger-shooting slits.

Elwurd.

Her jaw clenched hard, and it took the idea of her unintentionally ruining her own intricately-crafted list of tediously and painstakingly categorized bright cherry red-underlined list of troll names to make her slam the paper down onto her working desk before she crumpled the thing up or tore it to absolute shreds.

She doesn't even have a damn first name! How suspicious! Sketchy! …And yet, Elwurd doesn't need a first name to be gorgeous. To have a seductive smile and perfect hair and incredible fashion sense and take Bronya from her like it's fucking nothing at all.

They've long since broken up, but Lynera knows how Bronya is. She know how Bronya is better than anybody. And she’s seen how Bronya kept photos of Elwurd in her phone’s gallery. Lynera deleted them one by one.

Lynera never quite knows when she starts crying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Iiiiiii'm not the proudest of this one, but I'm trying…? Also, Merry Christmas if you celebrate! I'll be posting a few more chaps, prolly around 2-4 more


	15. [KARAKO] "Life is So Hard as a Baby"

Karako is very thankful for purplebloods having thick skin. Certainly in the metaphorical sense, but mostly in the literal sense considering how many sharp thorns and rocks and broken bits of who knows what he'd stepped on since he left the Jade brooding caverns. He supposes that he never truly realized before he left, even with all that Bronya (Bronya! Good gosh he loves Bronya) taught him about the world outside of the caves, how unpleasant the planet was. 

Everything is harsh. Everything is jagged and broken and tearing-into-skin-ish. In the brooding caverns, Bronya told him that he always cried and cried and cried. He would whine and whimper for hours on end, especially when Bronya wasn't in the room with him. It made it hard to hide him, she'd said, but she was determined to care for and love him. And she did.

Out here, though, Karako spills more purple-tinted blood than he does cry purple-tinted tears. He knows that it's just how it has to be. 

Once, back when he had first heard the watered-down versions of the terrors of the outside world from the girl he considered the only lusus he would ever need, he had spat and hissed and foamed at the mouth. He had wanted a revolution, a violent one even; anything to dismantle the disgusting system that had held him down and crushed others beneath its feet. The system that had killed so many of the people Bronya had loved, still loved. 

Bronya had frantically quieted him, so utterly fearful of being heard by invisible and more than likely nonexistent ears in her hidden nursery. She was always so scared when she was in that room with him, jumping at the slightest of sounds and silencing them both as soon as so much as a pin dropped. She made him practice drills with her, where she would pretend to be a drone or fellow jadeblood troll roaming the caverns that stumbled up on the extremely hidden entrance to the nursery. He would hide, squish himself underneath low-to-the-ground tables and so far into the corners of wooden medical equipment cabinets that he thought he would never be able to get out ever again. When the emergency drill was over, Bronya had always said that she was so darn proud of him for hiding when she announced it was time. He did it so quickly, so efficiently. She knew he didn't really need the practice, but she had to be cautious, you see.

Karako was angry that she had to be so cautious. Cautious about treating others like him with decency, cautious of taking care of innocent wrigglers who know nothing at all of the cruel, horrid world outside of Bronya’s firm, warm grasp. He envies them now, and as a set of thick vines covered in sharp pricking thorns and thin-like-hair spines wraps around one of his ankles and trips him into the dirt, he wonders about exactly WHY it has to be this way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honk! :o)


	16. [MARSTI] Disillusionment and Dirty Scourdray Water

Scrub. Scrub. Scrub. Clean. Scour. Lather. Rinse. Cleanse. Wipe. Scrub. Scrub. Scrub. Mop. Sponge. Disinfect. Wash. Swab. Sluice. Scrub.

It's what she does, night in and night out. Clean all the shitty, dark purple graffiti off of walls and buildings and sometimes even sidewalks. Rinse down and scour every inch of the seemingly infinite amount of grime-covered alleyways littering the nasty low blood communities and housing districts. Polish trash cans and their lids inside and out until they glint and shine like brand new silver bangles dangling fashionably from some pretentious-ass highblood’s perfectly skinny wrist. Maybe even sweep a few abandoned buildings and apartments corner to corner until there's a dust mound just under the size of the average loose leaf pile in the fall season.

Marsti doesn't like cleaning, honestly. She's heard a lot of her fellow rustblood public servants say there's something of an art to it all, and yeah, she can kinda see it that way if she quints, but she's also heard them say there's a somewhat therapeutic quality to all of their tasks, and Marsti just can't understand that at all. To her, there's never been anything even mildly relaxing about cleaning. It's like everything she does is on a timer, and that everything is going to be blown up and destroyed if she doesn't fix and clean everything to perfection within the time she's been so graciously allotted by who knows what. But it's like she always says whenever someone asks her about her supposed ‘hobby’— you don't have to enjoy a job to do it. 

Yes, believe it or not, Marsti Houtek actually just really doesn't enjoy cleaning. It just feels like something to do to fill in the time she has left on the planet. There's no inherent servitude in her mind when she performs the actions that she does, even though some may perceive it all to be that way and she won't stop them, and there's certainly no inherent rebellion in these tasks.

Make no mistake, she's been asked on many, many occasions about rebellion. By other rustbloods (that one with the large shovel and the buck teeth especially), by bronzebloods, by trolls as high on the hemospectrum as cobalt, and by groups of all assortments of colors that surrounded and pinned her in still-dirty back alleys to ask her of revolution in hushed, mellow tones. She simply has no interest.

Of course, it would be better on the surface level to stop the government-enforced segregation of lowbloods. Yeah, sure, even she can agree about something like that if asked. But even if the whole of the Alternian law was on their side, would trolls themselves ever truly change? Would making the culling of lowbloods illegal suddenly STOP the cullings from happening? And would it stop the guilty highbloods from being let off with no charges to be found due to a jury made of cowardly lowbloods and other strong, imposing highbloods? She doubted it.

Scrub. Scrub. Scrub. Clean. Scour—


End file.
